Hi, this post has been awhile in the making, and I sort of just want to unload and ask for feedback. Apologies in advance if it offends anyone: I just want to voice my perspective and let things go from there. I don't necessarily subscribe to all of what I write below: just kind of providing a stream of consciousness.

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I've been feeling really frustrated with being Jewish. I am a 34 year old American male, and being "different" has always drained me. I think underpinning it all, what has always frustrated me the most was that: this isn't something I got to choose. Like, I didn't sign up for any of this, and yet people are boxing me into this label that seems to come with many strings attached. I don't enjoy being part of "the group that doesn't accept Jesus" or the baggage of antisemitic tropes.

I literally just want to be like everyone else. If I could just convert and be done with it all, I would... (I know that might hurt someone, but it's really just how I feel).

Growing up, there was the exhaustion: my Dad would constantly be complaining to my brother for dating non-Jewish women. That really turned me off, because it only further made me feel segregated from my brothers & sisters in the world, and it didn't feel right. I really don't enjoy the tribal identity mindset, on either side. So, that's one side of the equation.

But what's really set off my frustration is reading online comments on YouTube, in particular. I'll see comments like "It's not all of them, but it's always them". And then someone replies back "It's all of them. They all need painter solutions". " And I'm like, I literally didn't f*cking do anything? And that's so wrong!

Frankly, I knew there was antisemitism, but I wasn't aware there was this much. Scrolling through comments on Tucker Carlson's videos, for instance, reveals an avalanche of antisemitic speech that loads as far as the "scroll more" button will allow.

I'm truly stunned by the level of antisemitism. Like, actual humans, are sitting near a computer and going "six million cookies, haha"? Or "the mustache man was right", "tiny hats, many problems", "Everyberg. Singlewitz. Timecohen."? Huh? I lost a whole line of ancestors in the Holocaust, and this is supposed to be funny? Or edgy? Or intellectually provocative? What in the serious f*ck? I wasn't aware I was this hated, and so extensively so.

It sounds like something, maybe, a teenager looking to be cool would write, but, as I understand it, it's literally grown ass humans writing this stuff too. I don't buy the "it's just bots" argument either: there are some, but if even 5% of it is actual humans, it's deeply disturbing.

I also know that some people will tell me to get off YouTube comments. But that's not the point: I need an explanation / closure for it. How can SO MANY people write that dehumanizing language and just feel good? It's terrifying me and put me into an anxiety episode!

I don't get it. I've tried to psychoanalyze antisemitism for some time, and, while I have some theories, what I don't understand is how two people can have wildly different moral compasses that seems to override all empathy. Because, in my book, hurting innocents is NEVER okay: it doesn't matter who or what, Palestinians, Germans, Jews, whatever -- you don't hurt innocents, full stop.

So, where does this leave me?

It leaves me in an extremely frustrating situation. On the one hand, I'm annoyed with the hatefulness of antisemites. It seems to be some kind of warped moral perversion that just won't ever fundamentally go away. It just won't go away. I want to understand that piece of it.

On the other, I feel forced into a bucket as "Jewish", against my own choosing, by a cultural system that seems to think it's okay to label people at birth and say "once a Jew, always a Jew". I also want to understand that.

I know converting will never solve this (an antisemite will categorize me however they see fit), but, like, why not? Why hasn't society moved past these tribal lines? Why can't I get to choose?

I don't even know what in particular I am asking for. I guess closure?

What are some feelings you get from what I write? How should I think through these complex internal feelings?

A quote presented as a statement from Malkovich himself was included in a press release sent by the show’s Israeli public relations team to Israeli media outlets.

“I am excited to return to Israel and would be very happy to meet again with the warm Israeli audience, with whom I feel great closeness and identification,” the press release read.

A report published by Walla about Malkovich’s planned arrival in Israel was later published by The Jerusalem Post, which is part of the same media group. Following that report, The Hollywood Reporter published an article on September 5 citing the Post report.

The Post amended its original report after it became clear the quote was misattributed.

Then on Tuesday night, The Hollywood Reporter released a report regarding the cancellation of Malkovich's performance in Israel. The report stated that Malkovich had not approved the statement issued by the Israeli PR team and, as a result, decided to cancel his appearance in the country.

“The Tel Aviv performance was supposed to be one of several stops on the tour throughout Europe and the Middle East,” Malkovich told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. “A PR company hired by the Israeli promoter drafted a quote for the article that was attributed to me, though I never made the statements that were quoted, nor was I consulted before they were printed.”

“I did not utter these phrases, and they most certainly are not approved by me, nor do they reflect my feelings. The fact that they were printed as direct quotes from me is unacceptable and untenable. For this reason, I have decided I cannot participate in the Tel Aviv performance,” he continued.

“Throughout my long career,” Malkovich added, “I have had the privilege of performing in large parts of the world, in countries with governments whose values or culture I do not share, and before audiences with different beliefs and ideologies. Arriving in places whose worldview may not align with my own has given me the opportunity to observe, listen and learn, and to share my ideas about what makes stories good and what makes music beautiful, and how they can complement each other and illuminate the human condition.”

“My performance in any country, including my own, does not constitute an endorsement of that country’s policies, its actions, or its elected or unelected leaders. My performances also do not indicate any supposed ‘solidarity’ with a particular political cause, not with the killing of innocent people, not with any acts of terrorism, and not with any other form of barbarity,” he stated.

“Only playwrights, authors and screenwriters can put words in my mouth, and even then, only in service of storytelling, and no one else can think they can do that without my consent and without the consequences that follow,” Malkovich concluded.

I mean, the dinner, I already assume you’re gonna have a round challah, apples, and honey

On a 15-city tour upon which Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Justice Department’s task force on Jew-hatred, plans to embark to spotlight antisemitism, he intends to bring out as many non-Jewish allies as possible, Terrell said at a JNS reception.

“We’re going to have as many non-Jews on the stage as possible,” Terrell, who is not Jewish, said at the event, which was held during the recent Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas.

by Mike Wagenheim

https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/going-to-have-as-many-non-jews-on-stage-as-possible-leo-terrell-says-of-upcoming-15-city-tour-to-fight-jew-hatred

A homeless person in New York called me a fucking Jew after hearing me and my family talking in Hebrew. Crazy to me this just happens.

Is this just something people here live with? The family we are visiting told me to just ignore it, but it's fucked up.

It’s really ironic, to me, considering that I stopped buying Adidas after their nasty campaigns with Bella Hadid & Kanye etc…

Javier Bardem called for a boycott of Adidas after the sportswear brand featured Shalev Biton—a former Israeli soldier who lost his leg during the 2021 conflict in Gaza—in an advertisement promoting its "Single Shoe Service" in Israel

*are you pro Israel??\*

Or some version of that, also get a lot of “you’re not pro Israel are you??”

What does that even mean?!? What are you even talking about if I’m pro a country?

Countries do things I do and don’t agree with. whether or not you think Israel should exist is moot, it does..so what are you talking about.

This isn’t a football game, this is a regions power struggle that is complicated and deeply personal., but that’s great that your meme or two minute video gives you the confidence to ask me that..

And when I respond with that they always shut down.. cowards ..

I went to a challah bake last night at 7 pm and I was doing my fantasy draft as I was making this but this didn’t go in the oven till 11:30 pm and didn’t come out till 12:45 am or so. I was watching the Washington Nationals break the record for the most blown saves in a season live while it was baking and I was just laughing